First of all, "Annette" is a speechless movie. When I try to express something, I find that language cannot carry it. This is the pinnacle of cinema. So I can only jot down a few words.
Let's get straight to the point: "Annette" is a musical, a "comedy" and a film about acting. Of course these are just a few aspects of the movie, it's a complex combination, and all we can do at the moment is to describe it from those perspectives first.
Before diving into Annette, we need to be clear about its external definition. It was Leos Carax's first English-language film, and it was also an "American film", a genre-movie musical.
When we look back at the history of musicals, we can find one of its distinctive features: "In dramatic stories, static, one-dimensional characters express familiar social conflicts and apparently forget the existence of the camera and the audience, while In musical scenes, those same characters acknowledge their roles as dynamic entertainers and perform directly in front of the camera/audience." Here is what differentiates musicals from other (genre) films: when other (genres) While movies are trying to hide their own editing and cameras, musicals have the courage to make their audiences clearly aware of the existence of the relationship between watching and being watched.
This is the presence of a performance in a musical. Musical films exist in a paradox of traditional cinema, which can simultaneously evoke emotions and confront the audience at the same time.
"Annette" does more than that, it's even more radical. The two actors, played by Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, are still singing as they make love in bed. It's an impossible picture of a Hollywood musical interruption, while re-emphasizing the cinematic performance. Namely Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard performing.
And here, another paradox arises, American-style performance and French-style performance (we only use these two words for now).
So let's go back to the comedy stage actor played by Adam Driver, his clothes and his boxing practice, it's hard not to think of the famous movie "Raging Bull" and Robert De Niro. How does De Niro perform? The answer is obvious - Methodism. Having said that, we do not need to dwell on the status of method acting among American film actors. Where Adam Driver is Method incarnate, Carax is trying to find a French connotation in the film (mainly Adam Driver). Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard's performances are defined as "imitation" (this is Diderot's expression). Or that Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard are imitating the roles of the two movies.
Imitation brings the effect expected by the audience, which is similar to the connotation of genre films. Are genre films just imitating each other? Maybe we can get the next yes answer. At this point, acting and genre films became what Bergson calls automatons. "Because what is in front of me now is a self-running mechanism. It's no longer life, it's a mechanical movement that is housed in life and imitates life. That's funny."
Adam Driver plays the comedian.
What Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard ended up producing was a true mechanical device, "Annette," the essence of performance, the essence of musical.
When Adam Driver and Leos Carax merged, they were trapped in the cage of American cinematic narrative—criminal and wicked must pay. And Annette, in the end it "died" to the narrative. She became the real little girl we expected. Perhaps we could say that it gave way to narrative itself. Narratives are not the purpose of musicals. The essence of performance, the essence of musical (movie) is gone from Leos Carax.
Leos Carax is also fighting back the "Leos Carax doesn't have a narrative" criticism left over from Sacred Cars when he refers to himself getting caught up in the narrative of American cinema. Just wonder how much his critics can read.
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